I want to convey my meaning. There have been times in my life when I have had friends introduce me to a date or new acquaintance or some person, and I have been able to perceive a quality in this newcomer that allowed me to judge a severe and dangerous personality flaw in the same. Parents do this for their highschool children, for example.

After moving to Seattle I saw for the first time a thriving drug culture, where partakers are successful enough to maintain what I would call a hardcore habit without doing anything unseemly, such as begging or stealing or anything remotely illegal, and still also grow socially, financially, and every other way. These people now stand out to me sometimes. The dictionary word is “cant,” meaning the person inadvertently says innocuous things that convey to other knowledgable persons, completely unknown to them, that they are the part of a drug-using society. I can only spot the most obvious fringe of this group, but it amuses me when I can tell that some public complication has arisen due to heroin or speed use, and other passers-by do not even register that the disturbance is out of the ordinary.

In this way, the effeminate disco boy here – as flamboyant as any American gay stereotype – is detectable by me but is outside the radar of others. Nandan understands, because Nandan knows. But still I think my disco teacher will marry someday, and maybe a lot of people would not even consider the possibility that he could be gay. This is outside the contemplation of these people. I doubt that my teacher even knows what he does or that he stands out to me… but he is really strange. I can put up with him… for a while… but not long. His type bothers me.

The other teacher, Nandan’s English teacher, would be a better option for me, but Nandan wants to negotiate a rate with him. He asked for what I payed Bhasha Bharati, but that propagates the problem and would likely give me an inferior teacher.

Again, here is my problem. I pay Rs 200 an hour, for two hours six days a week, to Bhasha Bharati. This is about $45 a week and entirely within my budget. However, I pay my family Rs 1800 or $41 a month for a mostly private apartment (they need small access to a temple in a separate room from all my areas, but I have locks and lots of privacy. My price includes two excellent meals a day.

My family knows what I pay to them and they said I am being cheated. I consider Abiji to be a gentleman, and I like that. He is also a good businessman, and I like what he tells me about Indian business. He knows Western ways, and he has experience and his own lesson plan. Other teachers will not have these things; they will likely be those who teach English to Indians, trying to make a plan to teach Hindi to a foreigner probably for the first time. I explained this to Abi and Anu at Bhasha Bharati and they understood my situation entirely. They told me to take recommendation of my family and discontinue with them, but to visit anytime. This was the response that I wanted from them. I will continue to try to work with other teachers, and if I need more expertise then I will return for polish.

Rajan continues to ask me about American dating habits. He has the expectation of a virgin marriage, single partner for life with consummation after marriage and probably the whole thing would be arranged. But he sure has a lot of questions about American ways…

Something that might have upset him was that I told him my brother and sister were from a different father. I had to explain this to him in different ways. His English is good, better than most, but not as good as Nandan’s.

As an aside, let me rate English in order of proficiency-
1. Chandan, Nandan’s brother, impressed me the most but I only talked to him for about a half hour.
2. Abi has an accent but he knows idioms and is accustomed to Westerners, so he communicates perfectly with an accent.
3. Nandan has an accent and lacks a lot of words, but I think that right now his English is excellent and he will master it soon enough.
4. Nandan’s teacher has little accent but I cannot perceive what it is that he knows that Nandan does not. His pronunciation is great, but he surely does not know much that Nandan does not, if he knows anything. Maybe he can teach literature.
5. There is a twelve-year old out in the neighborhood that speaks with little accent and uses the right words and phrases. I think he learned a lot from foreigners, so I rate him here.
6. Rajan needs a bit more time with books and a foreigner (like me) but he is able to express even abstract concepts in creative ways.
7. Nandan’s father is highly educated but with a thick accent. His vocabulary is huge and he uses proper idioms, and he speaks as well as possible for a person who has had little training mastering the Western pronounciation.
8. Most other students are not as good as these, and I am referring to college types.
9. Far, far below this level comes an educated class who have knowledge but little experience.

Back to the story – Rajan seemed to think that I said a shameful thing or that I cursed my mother by stating that she had children by another man. I tell Rajan lots of things about American familial and dating customs, and still he asks me again the same questions in different ways.

I am feeling better in my stomach but I think I may have a cold. The weather changed suddenly here and is cold. In America I was never sick, and so I take lots of advice here.

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This is Lane Rasberry's personal blog. None of the information on this blog is private, but it is personal and I have not written it with the intent to make it of public general interest.
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